By now, most adults are
used to the idea that the software and services they use—including video
games—record what they do to send feedback to the companies that make them. But
when some third-graders found out that games they love have some kind of
data-mining, it was a heartbreaking combination of funny and sad.

NPR visited a third-grade
classroom in Washington, D.C. in a follow-up to a previous piece about
game-makers' increasing
monetization of player behavior research. The kids had listened to and
talked about the preceding report with their teacher and then wrote letters in
reaction to this revelation. Four of the loss-of-innocence missives get
highlighted in NPR's newest report.

The tenor of the combined segments
unfortunately shores up the idea of video games as a scary, addictive threat
while highlighting the need for parents to monitor their kids' game-playing. But,
then again, this is the target audience—or the most naïve, vulnerable part of
it, anyway—giving a different kind of feedback. "Kind of creepy"? "Brillent
[sic] idea but bad idea"? Game designers of the world, you might want to listen
to them.